The world's energy appetite is growing fast and energy production capacity is being rapidly devoured. A fundamental shift in global demand has begun accompanied by a slow supply response, given the long lead-time required to rebuild surplus fossil fuel capacity. While the major renewables, solar and wind power, are growing they still make up a very small amount of the country's total energy output.
The cost of discovering oil in remote foreign countries, drilling offshore in deep water, transportation across oceans and more rigorous refining to meet more stringent environmental laws has made oil far less energy “profitable” than it once was.
In response, billions of dollars have been invested in renewable energy over the past decade. The primary renewables that have received the most funding are wind, solar and biofuels. But even with all this rapid growth, wind, solar and biofuels, all together, make up less than 1% of global electricity production. The single greatest challenge to growth of renewable energy is its inability to compete with traditional energy sources without subsidies or market preferences. If these technologies cannot surmount transitional economic challenges, they can never become a “mainstream” component of the maturing energy sector. Renewable energy can only compete effectively with traditional energy sources if they achieve similar economies of scale. Whether they can meet this challenge depends both on these technologies' physical attributes and on the legal environment. Two key challenges will affect this attempted transition: (1) financial feasibility of large-scale projects and (2) surmounting environmental siting and operation challenges for broad-scale use of these technologies.
A key issue for renewable energy development is whether a natural energy source has enough energy in it to pay for the energy of manufacturing, transport, construction and services it consumes over its lifetime.
It is believed that the present invention challenges even that number. It is believed that the invention requires less than half the weight of similar materials used to build a wind generator of the same capacity rating while its capacity utilization rate is three to four times greater. Its manufacturing process is less energy intensive while its installation, removal and recycling also consumes less energy. Following wind power's example, the invention system's high expected return on investment (“EROI”) should drive its early adoption worldwide.
Wide use of the invention will protect consumers from increases in electricity costs due to volatile fuel prices and supply disruptions by reducing the use of natural gas and other fuels used for electricity generation, and lowering the pressure on their price.
The invention has many environmental advantages over fossil fuels the most important being a zero carbon footprint.
The inventor focused his efforts on the development of zero-carbon energy and the most likely clean energy source to develop on a global scale and also able to challenge coal on a global basis.
Through the centuries hydropower has been dominated by the dam and reservoir configuration. But these large dam and reservoir projects, many built fifty or more years ago, are land intensive, environmentally unfriendly, and are no longer cost-competitive to replicate today.
Although hydropower is a clean and unlimited source of energy, it often comes with a high price. It is currently dominated by huge expensive dams, which displace people, flood vast areas and wipe out fish populations that need open rivers to spawn. Holding back further use of hydropower has been the lack of an efficient, inexpensive and environmentally friendly technology to extract energy from water.
Current river and tidal energy systems are limited in the following way: The devices are not be removable without damage to site. The devices reduce downstream sediment layering. Some devices require significant elevation change. Many devices reduce aeration of water. Some devices emit noise and vibration. Many devices require costly heavy load capacity roads to be built to site. Some devices cannot be fabricated of recycled materials that decrease their total lifecycle energy costs. Many devices cannot be developed to a global scale energy source because such global scale use requires an ease of transportability across national border.
Some devices create pollutant accumulation. Many devices have low capacity utilization. Some devices have high build cost/MW. Many devices have high operating costs/MW. Some devices have high visibility. Some devices have poor operational safety. Some devices have complex, weak structures because they have major load areas spread out over the device, which does not allow overall unit size and weight to be reduced. Some devices have many working parts, parts count and a large complex electrical harness.
Many devices are large so they cannot be applied to many smaller sites and easily expanded in number when needed. Some have turbine blade tip speeds are higher than other axial flow turbines, which increases wear and tear, noise, vibration and the potential for impacts on sea life. Some devices have a high vertical profile and cannot be configured to fit a variety of project sites.
Many devices have a major impact on the seabed because they utilize deep-sea moorings, mono-piles, and foundations to be held in place. The mooring system of some devices make them more difficult and more expensive to install and maintain. Some devices have significant built-in resistance to high stress shocks from debris and high flow rates. Many devices require lengthy waiting for permits, surveying, designing, breaking roads into site, designing, excavating, hauling in tons of rock, concrete and equipment for years.
Some devices require to be manufactured only in a technologically advanced country which makes its application more expensive to spread globally. Many devices have large numbers of working parts, parts count and large electrical harness. The overall size of some devices are so large they cannot be applied to many smaller sites and not easily expanded in number when needed. Some devices have a high vertical profile and cannot be “stackable” down a section of the river limiting their ability to be configured to fit a variety of project sites. The mooring system features make some devices more difficult and more expensive to install and maintain. Some devices do not provide a variety of deployment configurations, thus they can not be installed in a wide range of sites.
The major components of some of the devices cannot be mass manufactured thus they will always remain expensive to produce in large numbers. Some devices and their major components are difficult to ship. Many devices' installation require foundations or mono-piles which adds cost and install time as well as considerable field work. Some devices are such large project requiring large amounts of up-front funding they are difficult to find funding. Many devices have high turbine tip speeds, major impact of water surface (high view shed issue) and have major impact on the sea bed, the potential environmental impacts are substantial, which should increase the schedule and cost and decrease the likelihood for obtaining permits and local community acceptance.
Because of the complexity of the many devices with high number of moving parts, the life-cycle operating and maintenance costs will be higher than the other less mechanically complex technologies. The breakeven cost of power (calculated without consideration of any subsidies or incentives and it includes amortization of capital invested but no return on invested capital) delivered from some devices is not competitive with today's power supply systems, including electricity generated from fossil fuels, nuclear, wind, solar and biomass. Thus, there is still a need for an efficient, economical, easy-to-install, easy-to-maintain, unintrusive device that can harness energy from the river and tides with minimal disturbance to the environment, while maintaining versatility and customizability.